pmt&Motimm muß
Salish-Kootenäi CoTiinimity College ISSN:05î*B 1802
Box 1020 -
Ronan, MT 59864
OF THE FLATHEAD INDIAN RESERVATION, WESTERN MONTANA
VOLUME 11 NUMBER 16 NEW MOON OF THE WANDERING JANUARY 1,I983
Historic luncheon brings note of peace, optimism
PABLO - Representatives from five jurisdictions met last month in Poison at a meeting they later described as historic and astonishing.
The occasion was a luncheon December 13 hosted by the Tribes to mark the end of a ten-year struggle over lakeshore rights. The Tribes won the court battle, known as the Namen case, on November 2, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case. The decision affirmed once and for all that the Tribes does have regulatory authority over land below the high-water mark of the south half of Flathead Lake, according to treaty provisions. The ruling also helped disprove the theory that Congress intended to disestablish the Flathead Reservation when it opened the area up to non-Indian homesteading in the early 1900s.
Representing the state of Montana was Governor Ted Schwinden, who braved a winter storm to drive over from
Quarterly is next week
The year's first quarterly meeting will be January 7, in the Council chambers in Pablo.
The meeting will begin around 9 a.nx, and lunch will be served.
Helena, and Senator Jean Turnage. Six Tribal councilmen, including Chairman Tom Pablo, and numerous employees from county and city offices rounded out the audience.
Poison Mayor John Dowdall called the meeting "an astonishing thing". Others expressed the hope that it would open an era of better communications between all of the governments involved with the Reservation ~ Tribal, state, county, city, and federal (BIA).
"The time has really come for common sense to prevail," Shoreline Protection Board member Gem Mercer said. The board will be implementing the Tribes' Shoreline Protection Ordinance 64A.
Jim Steele, Tribal councilman, expressed optimism for the future, saying he felt the current Tribal Council was "a progressive one". Steele recently resigned from the board to serve as temporary coordinator of the implementation process.
Tribal attorney Evelyn Stevenson summed things up saying, "We're all looking to save Flathead Lake." She said she hoped meetings such as this one would "help overcome the element of fear" that has characterized Tribal-non-Tribal relations in the past
The luncheon, prepared by the Flathead Lake Senior Citizens, ended on a touching note (you should pardon the pun) when Executive Tribal Secretary Fred Houle, Jr.,
(Concludes on the next page)
Wallet-sized reference: 1983 calendar and Tribal phone directory Centerfold